Thanks for all the messages about my first musings memo. On my mind this time: "Green Brexit" and whether orangutans will be the new chlorinated chicken.
What ever happened to "Green Brexit"?
Michael Gove famously pledged to deliver a Green Brexit. "Brexit, with the right decisions, can enhance our natural environment", he said. So, two Environment Secretaries later, and exactly a year since the UK left the EU, will Brexit be green?
Theresa May acknowledged there was "no serious constituency" for lowering environmental protections post-Brexit, and, in the past year, Boris Johnson has gone beyond the EU in toughening up climate targets, ending petrol and diesel sales by 2030, axing overseas taxpayer financing of fossil fuels, and putting farming on a greener path.
And yet certain influential think tanks continue to push using Brexit to row back on environmental protections, and we're still to see what happens when a larger economy like the United States asks us to relax our green protections as the price of any future trade deal.
Iain Martin predicted in 2019 that risks over hormone beef and chlorinated chicken were overblown, writing on Twitter that"... British govt attempting it will be defeated in 24 hrs by coalition of Countryfile, Mail, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, R4 and about 20m voters."
So far, he's been proven right. An alliance involving Winston Churchill's grandson and celebrity chefs in The Mail on Sunday, powerful farmers unions, consumer groups and greens opposed Trade Secretary Liz Truss' attempts to open the floodgates to low-standard food imports. Ultimately, Number 10 stepped in and backed MP Anthony Browne's idea to use trade policy via higher tariffs on these goods to defend our values and farmers.
Protest works. But what if new threats keep cropping up? Perhaps those less eye-catching than ones involving dunking chickens in chlorine… threats that don’t bring about the ultimate power package (farmers + tabloids + celebrities + enviros)? Where will people turn as a last resort when the ECJ is no longer relevant?
Gove promised a new environmental watchdog to enforce green laws after Brexit and hold the government to account if they miss targets on things like clean air. But the legislation to make this happen was kicked into the long-grass (again) last week.
Under the draft plan, targets won't be set for a few years and, even then, they won't be enforceable through the courts for many more years to come. Add to this the fact that the new watchdog will be answerable to the Minister it is meant to scrutinise (incidentally, the same Minister who just authorised the use of a bee-killing pesticide), and it’s a blurry picture.
The good news is MPs will vote on these issues in the autumn, when the eyes of the world will be on Britain to deliver environmental leadership at the UN climate summit. Broad-based public pressure may once again prove instrumental. After all, as Greenpeace chief John Sauven put it, "Nobody voted for a dirty Brexit that leaves our beaches, water and air quality worse off."
From chlorinated chicken to orangutans?
Trade Secretary Liz Truss just announced Britain will seek to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) with countries including Malaysia.
Malaysian Ministers have already signalled they want Britain to weaken rules limiting their palm oil exports as the price of trading with them. These are restrictions put in place by the EU to protect rainforests and orangutans, and since added to by Environment Minister Zac Goldsmith - although I'm told the Malaysians put pressure through Raab and Truss' departments to try and weaken these modest proposals, too.
The Americans may seek to join this trade pact, too. Cahal Milmo reported in iNews how a deal with the US could see big American gas guzzlers allowed on British streets: "US manufacturers want to boost exports to the UK by securing ‘mutual recognition’ of safety and environmental standards for vehicles – a move which would potentially allow American-made cars emitting higher levels of CO2 onto Britain’s streets."
With pressures like these, what’s the chance that post-Brexit trade deals could instead be used to defend or even drive up standards on climate change?
Cambridge expert Markus Gehring has long-studied this question, producing a series of briefings last year. He describes the UK-EU deal as "trailblazing", it being "the first instance in which climate change is an ‘essential element’ of a trade treaty." He writes that "The agreement contains one of the strictest formulations of a non-regression provision by adopting mandatory language prohibiting the weakening or reduction of levels of environmental or climate protection."
Much of his assessment hinges on Article 9.4: "What makes the climate and environmental law provisions particularly significant is their inclusion in what is now called ‘rebalancing’ (Article 9.4). If ‘material impacts on trade or investment arise as a result of significant divergences between the [p]arties’, Article 9.4.2. gives each party the right to take rebalancing measures that are strictly necessary and proportionate to address such a situation."
But the Institute for Government’s Georgina Wright gives us reason to be sceptical these provisions will actually be enforced or will necessarily prevent other trade deals with weaker provisions.
"The commitments on the environment and climate go beyond what is found in other free trade agreements the EU has negotiated… Nevertheless, they are similar to the labour and social provisions in that they commit both sides to not reducing the level of environmental protection in a way that impacts trade or investment. This focus on impact could limit how these provisions are used (as it won’t be about the rules themselves), but again will be subject to interpretation…"
This crucial wriggle room, particularly in the absence of any required environmental assessment of future trade deals, suggests the UK could yet agree to weaker green rules through other agreements and still be let off the hook by Brussels. Winning a requirement for environmental assessments of future trade deals, so that hard-won protections can't be traded away in secret and the public and their MPs can understand any trade-offs feels fundamentally important - and yet is by no means in the bag.
Are carbon tariffs on dirty imports one solution?
Sam Lowe has been exploring a corrective to the problem of pollution from imported goods: higher tariffs on those associated with high levels of carbon pollution - an idea not dissimilar to the one No. 10 is pursuing in relation to low standard food imports. It would protect jobs in our green industries from being undercut with cheap, polluting imports from places like China.
The EU already plans to enforce carbon border levies from 2023, and President Biden has promoted a similar concept. Given the government’s planned expansion of carbon taxes to cover more parts of our economy (more on this soon), I wager it won't be long before the debate hots up in Westminster too.
very interesting. A bit more hope now that trade negotiations are under Biden.
Is there a way for us to put pressure on Brussels ie to enforce the environmental/climate provisions of the EU-TCA to challenge any weakening by Truss, Gove etc? Do we need a joint NGO/independent/pro-active research unit (along the lines of the Independent SAGE), to constantly needle any weakening by the Government of the non-regression clauses?